A bit of an aside, despite my childhood going through the '90s, I'm a bit surprised to be doing these Disney reviews and realize most of the movies I grew up on were, quite frankly, this old. Almost forty years after it's release kids were still being raised on these movies, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's still happening. These classic Disney movies do well to hold up to the test of time. And now we are finally to one of my favorite Disney Movies, Alice in Wonderland.
On one hand, there isn't much of a plot going on in this movie. Alice is curious and follows a rabbit and ends up in a land of nonsense, one she dreamed was real. Though the idea is she is chasing after the white rabbit, pretty much the only thing that happens in the movie is Alice has to deal with utter nonsense. Two twins that just want to keep her there to tell strange stories, singing flowers that think she's a weed, food that makes her bigger or smaller, and cards that are painting white roses red because they planted the wrong ones and don't want a crazy queen to kill them.
It's not that the plot is bad by any stretch, I'll get to that in a minute, but the real draw here is the visuals. Probably more than any movie aside from Fantasia, Alice in Wonderland is driven by the visuals. They are so colorful and creative, making fantastic use of the idea that everything about the world is wrong. There are no sane inhabitants, logic feels backward, and at times the figurative is made literal. There is a weird kind of sense and logic behind all the insanity you see. And it all works well to the themes of the movie.
Alice wanted a world of nonsense where everything was strange and bizarre, and now she gets to experience what that world is like. Having not thought it through, she realizes how confusing and hard living in that kind of world would be. It's a sort of 'be careful what you wish for' kind of scenario. It's not hammered home, but at the same time, it is pretty basic. For the story, it wants to tell and the message it gets across, it does a fine job.
What helps sell the whole story is, compared to the previous Disney leads, Alice feels like the most realistic character. It may be the most bizarre of scenarios, but Alice does feel like a small girl. She has a very active imagination, is incredibly curious, at times can feel a bit stubborn, and the story lets her start break down at times. There's a lot more to her than all of the previous leads, and it's nice to see Disney starting to improve upon some of their previous flaws, watching through these movies I do feel a sense of growth from Disney as a company.
As mentioned, this movie is carried mostly by its visuals. With that in mind, if you are down for a bizarre ride with a fun lead character, you really can't go wrong with Alice in Wonderland. It's a fantastic movie, and this has nothing to do with anything else in the review but the Oyster scene depicts the oysters as babies meaning this is the first and possibly only time a Disney Movie depicts someone eating Babies and I have no idea how to segway out of this.
